Walking Dead Traps

The grey fox was running as fast as she could away from the pack on her tail using every trick she'd ever been taught as a kit. She was laying false trails, dashing through mud and water, crossing back, even going so far as to step backwards in her own prints before going off in another direction entirely. She could hear the howls get closer and closer and her heart raced, legs propelling her faster and faster through the undergrowth in the forest. There was no room for fear in this world of hers so the fox clamped it down and ran, stretching her legs and feeling the dirt and stones under her paws, the way her breath coursed through her lungs and hoping that her tricks would be enough to save her.

Beth had heard the tires coming off the main road and hoped that they would keep rolling past her driveway as she tracked them by the sound of tires hitting stones on the dirt lane of her little road. They turned onto her gravel driveway (another early-alert in her line of defenses) and crunched loudly into the outer reach of her sense of smell. _Wolf._ The scent was all the warning she'd needed to get the hell out of dodge. In a flash she had opened her windows and was out as her fox form scampering across the roof and taking a perilous leap to a sturdy branch and then to the forest floor beneath. She was off like a shot before the wolves had even gotten halfway down her mile-and-a-half driveway. Wolves hunted fox for fun and she wasn't going to give them an opportunity to get teeth in her fur. Beth pushed herself and ran always keeping an ear in the direction of the house as she pushed deeper and deeper into her fifteen acre property and the dense forest within her boundary lines. The more space she had between them the better off the little fox would be. There was a rippling snarl from the house as they discovered the first of her traps; silver embedded into the door handles. Silver worked on wolves, cats, and bruins but not on any of the 'lesser' weres. Her mother had told her that it was a way to even the playing field. Her windows were threaded with silver wire, door handles contained triggers and silver darts that her deft fingers could avoid but the wolves with their big, clumsy hands could not. Shutters on the outside of her house were rigged with small bottles that would spray an aerosol silver mist about head-height on a wolf or a cat in human form. Her windows were too small for either of their forms to go through. The walls and were littered with fox-sized holes just big enough for her to squeeze through if she was cornered in her home. As a rule her doors stayed shut and locked unless she was carrying something between rooms. Sometimes Beth wondered if she was being overly paranoid but then on occasion there would be moments like this. One or two wolves she could throw off by scrabbling between rooms and picking up her pistol with its custom silver bullets but there were too many of them tonight to risk staying indoors. Her best chance was in the woods. The last of the dying sunlight flashed across her silver pelt and her heaving sides as she went farther and farther into the woods, running around the traps she had set up on her property. Some were designed to disable and some were designed to kill. As a rule she never lead her tracks to those; if her pursuers found them their blood wouldn't be on her paws.

Beth was running for her life and she was employing every trick she knew and had learned over the years. Now it was time for the final one. She fled back to the stream and down the creek, paws scrabbling over stone and stumbling in the cold current that tugged on her fur until she found what she was looking for, a willow tree that graced the side of the water. As a fox she was small enough to grasp the branches in her teeth carefully inch her way up into the boughs of the tree; it was a maneuver she'd only practiced once just to make sure she could do it. She had hoped to never need to use it. If she fell now they would find her and she could hear them spread out on her land yipping with excitement as they started to catch her scent. The yips of excitement turned into brutal howls of pain as they triggered trap after trap and silver imbedded itself into their flesh, burning them from the inside. Inch by precious inch she climbed up into the boughs of the willow and scratched her way onto the branch where she edged her way against the trunk with a pounding heart and silent prayers, hoping they would leave as she settled down onto a particularly well-fit niche she had carved out as a human. If they shifted back to human they could get to her but if they found her she was good as dead anyway. Beth would take them on with whatever she had at her disposal, be it fists or claws and teeth, and fight until the second they killed her. Time ceased to exist and she was perfectly still, concentrating on slowing her breathing and her heart-rate down to nothing (it turned out yoga had several benefits to both her forms). Her ears twitched as leaves crunched under paws and noses snuffled at the dirt. They were edging down the stream. It took conscious effort to still her body; even a shiver would give her away. They had found the tree. Beth was grateful for the summer growth that hid her from the wolves below. In winter her only outdoor option would be to bolt down into a hole but that, too, was a last resort. Her mother had died with the terror of scrabbling paws and raining dirt in her heart and it wasn't a way that Beth wanted to go. How big was this pack? Within her line of sight were six alone, the biggest and the meanest was a solid gray beast that sat and was looking from the water to the branches and back again. There were scars across his flanks and muzzle but the eyes in his face were bright and frighteningly alert. A second, slightly smaller and leaner wolf with a russet and grey coat had slunk up next to him and stood on all four feet as his head traced the same line as the alpha's. Seeing the pair move with such synchronicity was alarming; it was almost as if they had the same train of thought but were unable to figure out where exactly she was hiding. Water to tree to water again. The smaller one stepped into the creek and wove among the branches, sniffing. He backed up deeper into the water and locked eyes with her just before he let loose an ear-splitting howl. Her heart sank. She was done for. The wolf shifted back to human and stood gracefully (and_ very_ naked) in the middle of the river. Beth was still refusing to move, her eyes and ears pricked forward to catch even the slightest bit of sound. If they wanted her they would have to come up here and get here.

"Look, we're not here to hurt you." The wolf held up his human hands. "I know that ain't what this looks like." That was the understatement of the year. Her eyes narrowed. "My name is Daryl. We just wanna talk." Her eyes flicked down to the big one (who she thought was the alpha), her ear twitching to the side. He seemed to read her gestures. "This was his idea. Look, you can stay in the tree. We'll stay on the ground. You know they can't get up there like that." Well that was true enough but it wasn't enough evidence for her. Her head untucked from her tail and she flattened her ears and narrowed her eyes with a glare. It wasn't enough. "Look, what if most them go away? You're like us. You'll know when they go. It'll be just me and him." The man nodded towards the giant wolf on the bank. Her ears twitched forward and there was the sound of a dozen paws fading back in the woods. Beth waited until they were back at her house and clustered around cars before she stood and tiptoed over the branch to get higher up into the trees. The man's voice was tinged with frustration; he'd never had anybody question his orders or blatantly mistrust him before. "Aw c'mon, don't do that. I told you we ain't here to hurt you." It hadn't occurred to him that she didn't think his word was worth, well...anything at all.

Beth went up as far as she could before shifting back to human, waiting for the moment of disorientation to pass. "You're trespassing on my land." He chuckled.

"Actually, it's our land. This is part of our territory." He could see pale limbs tucked up into the tree, her voice was filled with bravado. The poor thing was terrified, he could hear her heart trilling loudly but she put on a brave face. Oddly enough he couldn't smell anything and he hadn't been able to hear her heart until she had shifted back to human. There was no fear or anxiety radiating off of her like there should have been but then again he'd never actually met a fox before today. "But the point is we need to talk to you." Daryl was cursing in his head; how could she be so damned stubborn? He was going to get in trouble for this later but time was of the essence. "Somebody took our pups. We have reason to think it's a collector." He heard her gasp in horror and then it turned into a whine. He could hear her padding down to a lower (but still safe) branch before turning back into her human form. From here he was struck by how young she was; young and beautiful. Wolves tended to be rugged and stocky but this one...she was delicate and fine-boned, utterly perfect and slender and supple. No wonder she could fit through the tiniest holes in logs that stuck around his head and dash under roots that had tripped him. He'd been expecting gray hair but what he saw instead was a tumble of golden waves across her shoulders. She was unabashed in her nakedness as only a were could possibly be.

"I'm sorry about your kits, Daryl. I am. And I appreciate the warning. But I do okay on my own."

"Apparently not, fox." He held up his hands at her bristling. "I don't have your name yet. What else am I supposed to call you?" The wolves already knew her name but it was part of way to forge that connection with her. Daryl took her silence and ran with it. "You're not doing okay. It didn't take us all that long to find you." He wasn't expecting the defiant toss of her head, or the pride that came with it.

"Only you two figured it out. And even then, that monster hadn't figured it out all the way. It was only you. Sounds like you stumbled into some of my traps, too." The great wolf on let loose a snarl and curled his lip. The girl's voice turned curt in response and there was just the tiniest sniff of disdain. "You're a monster. You're all monsters." The venom in her voice surprised the wolf still in the water. "You hunt other weres for _fun!_" It came out as a sharp cry that made their hair stand on end and the alpha cocked his head and blinked. "I'm sorry about your kits. I am. But maybe this should make you think twice before you go hunt another fox. Maybe this will put you in _our_ shoes."

So that's what it was about. God above no wonder she'd run like hell. Daryl fit a pit forming in his stomach and he felt sick, visibly blanching at the mention of a fox hunt. He'd heard of them before; other packs often ran fox hunts when he was younger and now there were only a handful of the creatures left. Shifters were smarter than their regular counterparts and as this one had demonstrated they were fully capable of laying traps and desiccating numbers of a pursuit if they had the time. It was part of what had apparently made hunting them so much...fun. It wasn't a concept he could wrap his head around. His brother, Merle, had established a hunting ban on other weres when he'd come into power for political reasons. There were wolves in his pack who had gone on a hunt before, even if the top brothers had not and it was part of the pack that had stayed behind and not participated today. Today had been about the wolves they could trust implicitly.

"We don't hunt others like us." The alpha barked once in agreement, a sharp ringing tone that carried through the glade and over the water of the stream below. "None of our pack do." _Anymore, anyway_. "We're here because we think he's coming after you." Silence rang through the woods and even the birds were quiet. "We've known you were here since you moved in and bought the land, Beth. I was going to let you tell me your name but we don't have time for that. We know about your family." The words hung in the air heavy with implication. He could see her shoulders droop. "We've never bothered you before. You actually benefit from living here. We're here because you can help us find our pups."

"Yours specifically?" The question rang out from the tree with surprising authority as her spine stiffened again. Christ, were all foxes this touchy? Daryl's breath came out in a sharp huff.

"Two are my brother's. The other four are from others in the pack. One of them is a baby." Daryl looked his alpha. "We're wasting time. She's not gonna help us. She's got no reason to." The big wolf got to his feet and then was taking the form of a stocky human with close cropped hair and scars across his ribs and back much like the ones his brother also wore.

"I need you to find my kids, girl. This ain't about politics. Help me find 'em and we'll leave you alone for good."

Beth hesitated. If they were good on their word that would mean that she could go on and survive in peace and quiet, with only a minimum amount of fear. Perhaps she could even make a life without fear. Find a partner; perhaps another fox. She was taunted by the thoughts of running in the woods with another fox and tumbling across patches of grass in the meadow not too far from her home, of leaving her doors unlocked in her own home, disabling some of her traps. It was tempting. Too tempting. "And how do I know your word is good, wolf? You're not exactly trustworthy."

"You don't, kid. But just because I put down a huntin' ban doesn't mean I keep tabs on my wolves every day, you hear? This is a big territory for me, other people than us living in here. Like my brother said. You benefit. I can take back that ban whenever I want. I could also leave your town out of my territory and somebody else who _does_ hunt can take over." The alpha crossed his arms over his chest. his was a blatant warning; there are wolves and big cats who would invade that space and then she would be running for the rest of her life. Beth had grown used to having roots here, her job and her friends. The human community here had accepted her. Politicking was part of life in the were community but they were running out of time. The trail would be cold if they waited too much longer. "My name is Merle."

She hesitated. There wasn't really a way she was coming out of that tree without some assurance of her safety. As much as it galled her...they were her best choice for getting out of this alive. "And what exactly would I have to do to help you find your kits? I don't do bait." The uncomfortable glance between the brothers told her everything she needed to know; her shriek was loud even to her own ears. "NO!" Beth shrieked and leapt from the tree and shifted mid-air, landing up to her hocks in mud but growling with her ears flat against her head and ready to run. The two men stayed on their human feet; if she was going to run she had enough time to lose them. The fox's spine was flat and her tail a bottlebrush as she felt her way backwards up the bank. Despite all of this, and her fear, Daryl couldn't help but admire her pelt. True, it wasn't as flashy as a red fox but there was something about the silver that caught the light and held it. Her teeth were bared and all of her fur was standing on end and he could tell by the way her muscles tensed that she was going to run for it. It was the desperation in his voice that stopped her.

"Please! I need you to help! Those are my nieces!" He had fallen to his knees in the water with his hands outstretched towards the little fox, heedless of the rocks digging into his knees, those blue eyes pleading silently with her where words failed him. "They're family. I love them. If you could have saved your sister you would have! Give me the chance to save them! They don't belong in a cage with a fucking **collar** on their necks! They're kids for fuck's sake!"

The fox had edged up to the bank with her ears flat and still slightly crouched, ready to spring away but the pain on his face that echoed into his brother's stoic eyes stopped her. The bushy tail lowered and her lips dropped to cover her teeth. It took time for her posture to relax and for her to sit with her tail curled around her paws. It was true. If she'd had a chance to save Maggie from the last collector they'd encountered, she would have. It was also true that she would kill each and every wolf responsible for tracking down her brother and father and mother and killing them for sport. The family had been attacked by a pack of wolves when Beth was very young, just ten years old. There had been a plan for this; they all had their jobs to do. Her brother and father would dash past the wolves to draw them off and run for their lives. Maggie, Beth, and their mother would run for the woods. There they would split in three directions and wait six hours before going to the rendezvous point deep in the forest and close to a human hiking trail. Only the sisters had made it out. Tucked away in her hiding place Beth had heard them find her mother and rip her apart. When Maggie had limped across the trail Beth had tumbled against her as a fox, too afraid to shift back and deal with the loss of her family. The pair had managed to live on the run until three years ago, when they had run into a collector by complete accident. A long, tense standoff had ended with Maggie sacrificing herself for her little sister, holding the man off and surrounded by dogs when Beth had run off. She had never seen her again. The loss of her family was a deep ache in her chest that never left and despite these wolves being...wolves, she felt compelled to help. Six years hadn't dulled the loss of her sister much at all and the anguish in the voice of the younger wolf paired with the flash of pain on his stolid Alpha's face convinced her and she shifted back, still crouched on the ground. This wasn't a hell she would wish on her worst enemy.

"You'll never bother me again as long as I live. You'll actively enforce your ban on hunting around wherever I happen to live, even if I move." Beth was going to be using herself as live bait; she had an ability to get whatever she wanted out of this and she was going to milk it. "I want monetary compensation." The Alpha gave her a curt but grudgingly respectful nod.

"I can authorize five hundred thousand now if you'll escort us to your home and promise you another five hundred when we have the pups back."

It had been more than she was going to ask for. A million dollars. It made her wonder how much they had in their pack accounts. "And that again if I get injured." A very steep bargain but they must have been desperate and sure of their ability to protect her because they agreed. Beth was stuck, now. She'd made a contract with these wolves and broken one of her primary rules for survival.

Don't get involved with Pack.

Beth shifted back to her fox and took a moment to shake her fur out and make it lie flat before trotting off in the shortest route to her house, scrambling down gullies and leaping into places with just a hint of smugness as the wolves had to actively find alternate routes to her fox-sized options. It was partly a way for her to tell them that she could outwit them if she chose while also being a reminder that she was outside of their pack hierarchy. A wolf would have found the routes for her superiors. The cursing from her kitchen proved that the wolves had found more of her traps and were struggling to get the silver out of their fingertips while others tended burns from the silver wire around the windows. There were less now than there had been before and some of the cars had left; perhaps they were dealing with the severely injured who had found her traps in the woods. As she ducked through the open door she found herself in the hands of a very large (and angry) wolf in human form. She was twisting and crying in his hands, scrabbling and biting savagely at his wrists as his red-rimmed and recently-silvered eyes glared at her. The fox went quiet as the big grey Alpha lunged for the man's wrist and clamped down, piercing tendon and crunching bone. The man would heal after he shifted but this was a very clear "no touching the fox" policy. The beta, Daryl, had already turned human and caught the fox after the man dropped her from a height that would have broken one of her tiny bones. He promptly put the wall at his back and turned, cradling her soft fur against the skin of his chest.

"You fuck with the fox you fuck with us." Merle, the Alpha, had shifted back and was spitting blood onto her kitchen floor next to the slowly-growing pool on the floor. "You lay hands on her again, Shane, I'll have your fangs and throw you out of the pack. She ain't involved in hierarchy, you got it?" He glared angrily at the men and women standing around in her kitchen. It seemed as though most of them had dressed themselves after the shift back. "You got no reason to touch her at all. I catch even a whisper of a rumor I'll beat the shit out of you. I hear it twice, I beat the shit out of you and toss you out of the pack." The fox's blue eyes widened over the severity of the punishment. The likelihood of another pack taking in a banished wolf was slim-to-none and nobody wanted to face the life of a lone wolf. It was enough for her, for now. They would need to prove themselves worthy of her trust but she was reasonably assured of her safety. Enough to jump out of Daryl's arms with a shiver and trot up the stairs to her room, sliding through the fox-hole in the wall into her locked room. It didn't take long for her to clothe herself in a pair of grey comfortable jersey pants and a soft purple t-shirt and head back downstairs. Being clothed was a psychological advantage she needed, even if she did abstain from shoes in case she needed to make a clean getaway.

The sheer amount of wolves milling around her kitchen were enough to make her consider running for all she was worth. Something in the back of her mind was giving off a general sense of foreboding and she paused on the stairs as they all turned to stare at her. There were maybe twelve of the wolves left in her house and a young blonde who was probably around her own age was the first to break the silence. She slipped her way through the crowd to hold out her hand towards the fox with a hesitant smile. "I'm Amy."

"Beth." The fox was rewarded with a beaming smile from the other girl.

"It's good to meet you." Amy put her mouth near Beth's ear in a gesture of attempted privacy even if they both knew the whole room could hear. "You can always trust me at your back, Beth. Promise." She stepped back and Beth nodded briefly. This bright young wolf was honest and telling the truth. Her smell hadn't changed and there hadn't been a hitch in her heart beat. "It'll be nice to have somebody my age to talk to. All these other guys are _old_." There was a chorus of groans and rolling eyes as some of the 'older' pack members let out a curiously unthreatening growl from human throats; this was apparently a standard comment and provided a rare glimpse into how older wolves humored the antics of the younger members.

Daryl was flitting through the wolves touching shoulders and murmuring quietly into ears and another chunk, including the wolf who had grabbed her, filed out of the door without touching anything else in her home. There was a bit of a glow when she realized how well her traps had actually worked and then the glow dimmed as she realized she would need new ones. "Go ahead and call your bank, Merle." Food. She needed food. Beth had shifted too many times today with not enough to eat; she had actually planned on going to get groceries later and the wolves had interrupted her. There wasn't enough food for all of them so they would just have to go hungry (what an _utter_ shame that was). Their collective noses twitched as she dug around in her fridge and shoved the last of a series of tupperware containers with lasagna into the microwave. Most of the wolves were being smart and not touching a damn thing apparently not knowing what was booby trapped in her house and what wasn't. It gave her a grim sense of satisfaction that her paranoia had so clearly paid off. Anything that could be made of silver in her house was. It had been expensive and time consuming but given how afraid they were it was money well spent. "I wouldn't touch that if I were you." One of the few wolves remaining had been reaching for a cabinet handle made of a silver alloy.

Merle motioned her over and a brief discussion and a phone call to a woman named Karen, apparently a selkie in San Francisco, and had the first part of her money transferred. Beth was on the phone with her own banker while eating her lasagna, a woman named Michonne. Michonne was lynx; a bobcat not much bigger than a medium sized dog. They had been introduced by a mutual friend who was also a fox, a young man named Glenn. The lesser were tended to stick together in times of crisis and sometimes the greater were would as well. Michonne lived in Atlanta across town from Glenn and handled the financial needs for most of the supernatural in the state. Occasionally she would take some time and come to the mountains for a run but she was unusual in the sense that she actually preferred to live in an modern and urban environment. Beth knew her to simply lie out on her massive black leather couch as a cat and look over the view of the Atlanta skyline from her condo. Between that and her natural proclivity for rabbit the two had eventually evolved their business arrangement into a friendship. For some reason Georgia attracted weres from all over the place. Beth knew a surprising assortment. Otters, beavers, one or two other foxes, bruins, various cats, and...of course, the wolves.

"You okay, kid?" The cat's voice was tinny through the phone. "Need me to kick some ass or send in one of the big guys?" The 'big guys' happened to be a pair of vegetarian bruin (with some serious hippie tendencies) about twenty miles from where Beth lived and they had taken a liking to the young, quiet fox over the years and tried to invite her round for dinner every few months or so. She would go more often but she went for the company rather than the food; she preferred meat to an assortment of soy products and vegetables.

"Not yet. So far so good. But if you don't hear from me in about four hours call them." Another assurance on her safety.

"Gotcha. Yeah, you're good." There was a soft whistle. "Jesus Christ, kid. Money came in from Switzerland about...three minutes ago? It's routed into your secondary account in the islands. You say you got another one coming through?" Keys tapped on her side of the line.

"Yeah I have one more coming hopefully sooner rather than later and keep an eye out for a potential third. Call it insurance." The tapping stopped.

"Something I should know about, kid?" Meaning _is there something everybody else should know_.

"Actually there is. Come visit me this weekend and I'll tell you all about it."

"You got it. I'll bring some rabbit and you can do that amazing pie thing you make."

"Done deal." The phone clicked into silence.

There were several adult wolves at her table. Two females and four males, all be told. She learned these were the parents who had had their children kidnapped all at once from a daycare slash primary school the pack ran. They'd been stolen the way back from a "field trip", which was code for going to find a patch of woods and teach the pups to shift because even the infant could learn if they put her right against her brother's side. That in itself was an interesting tidbit; wolves had to be taught to shift and led through it by a family member for the first few years. A small wolf required a tether to an older wolf. He would pull her through one set of shifts (human-wolf-human) and then keep practicing himself while the baby got fed. A fox shift was instinctive from birth. It was fairly common to see kits as...well, kits, for a good portion of their childhood. It was partly why raising kits required a house far, far away from human society. They had to be taught when it was appropriate (and safe) to shift.

Three sets of siblings were gone. Slender Lori and shadowed Rick had lost both their infant daughter and their older son Carl. Grey-haired Carol and bulky Tyrese had lost their adopted daughters, Mika and Lizzie. Then there were the Alpha's twins, named Hallie and Astrid. The entire van had been forced off the road and abandoned and the four adults had been dead on the side of the road; two humans and two wolves. The stronger two had shifted to defend the kids but it wasn't enough against silver bullets between the eyes. The rest of the pack had tracked the vehicle for an hour or so until they had to come to an abrupt halt; the trail had been sprayed with a noxious combination of gasoline and Round-up and their sense of smell had been blown to kingdom come for hours. By the time it came back there was no trail to follow. They'd received a call from a coyote who was concerned about her safety two days later but by the time they got there the woman was gone with her house empty and signs of a visible struggle. A human receptionist who was a friend of the pack worked for a man named "Joe" who did some sort of salvage as a business and had apparently expanded into the role of obtaining certain kinds of unique persons; for a price.

Joe was just the middle man. The man who worked at the desk had found a list of names and places and dates; when he realized that the names of the kids in the pack were on it he called them but it was too late. The wolves had a copy of the list and the weres on the list were slowly disappearing. Merle pulled a copy of the list from his pocket and slid it across the table. Beth Greene was next on the list. "Beth Greene- Gray Fox (Urocyon cinereoargenteus), location found, pickup scheduled 7/12" at just over two weeks away. She felt sick and shoved the tupperware away from her and buried her face in her hands. She wanted to implode, to run away, to get in her car and drive and never look back. There was a deep sense of anguish; hadn't the universe taken enough from her? Her siblings? Her parents?

Beth was suddenly aware of a hand rubbing her back and she knew by the scent of it that it was Daryl. Why would he be so kind to her? He was telling her something, trying to get her to pull back into herself. "We'll protect you, Beth." But how? How could anybody save her from this? Locked up away in somebody's zoo like a freak. Stuck in a plastic box with a collar on her neck for the rest of her short, pathetic little life and being fed mice when her slavers were feeling generous. She shuddered and yet...Daryl's hand on her back was a circle of warmth that cut through her fear and spread to the rest of her body, tingling down deep into her toes. The fox in her believed in him somehow. The most cautious part of her believed him when he said she was safe and that he would protect her, that she would be okay.

"You can't promise that."

He sighed. "You're right. I can't promise it. But I can promise you justice if you do get hurt." But that wasn't enough, either. They would want justice for their pack anyway. "You have my personal assurance that I'll rip 'em limb from fucking limb."

There was a collective snarl that ripped from the wolves at the table, their eyes flashing in their anger and pain and loss. It was Lori who spoke next with more strength than Beth would have thought possible. "We'll get the bastards, fox. That's a promise from **me**. For my kids. For _our_ kids. For you." Outside a chorus of wolves started to howl.


End file.

Walking Dead, Drama